Working Mama Wednesday - Bonus Time 2013

A good portion of my income is made of my annual bonus. We always look forward to bonus payout because it helps us to check off a few things on our list that we'd wanted to do for the past several months but because of Christmas & New Year, both of which bring higher expenses for our family, we weren't otherwise able to do.  You know, all the exciting stuff like buying new tires where steel belts are coming through and replacing the fence at the rental house.  That being said, we always set aside a little money for each of us to spend independently on things we want.  It becomes a bit of a treat for us both to purchase something nice for ourselves without any guilt what-so-ever because all of our other expenses that we'd been putting off have been taken care of.  In this past this has meant things like a new Xbox360 for my hubby or new clothes/shoes for me.

This year my hubby new exactly what he wanted.  In fact, he knew exactly what he wanted for about 6 months and I give him super props for using self-control to avoid purchasing it earlier.  You see, our tv was 8 years old and on its last leg.  Hubby bought a 60" Sony as a bonus gift to himself after he hired on at his current job which was also his first "career-type" position.  He took great care of it and it served our family well while it lasted but unfortunately it had a problem where it was slowly turning blue.  Something related to the picture quality was actually melting so every time we turned it on or off the edge of the picture became a little more blue and we lost a few more pixels.  By the time the new year came around the damage to the tv was very obvious - every time you turned it off the screen looked more like the opening scenes of Star Wars (think "In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...) than it did a blank screen.  Those "stars" appeared during a show too.

I admit, even I was getting bothered by it.  Mie, the frugal one who doesn't care much about picture quality or screen size - I was pretty much ready to get a new one too.

So hubby researched and read and researched some more to figure out what he really wanted.  This is what we ended up buying, the day my bonus hit the bank.

And fun was had by all.  We even watched a 3D movie (well 2 of the kids did - that's all the glasses we have for now, which by the way doesn't work well when you have a 7 member family...).  Everyone's happy and the astronomical tv is headed upstairs to the play room for future use.

A few days later I had the opportunity to do some shopping of my own and buy the thing I was looking for...

These are close - I can't find them anymore online because true to self the shoes I bought were on clearance and are nowhere to be found online...

When I showed my hubby my purchase he said "don't you already have enough shoes?".  I quickly pointed out that I had 2, one for working in the yard and one for normal wear.  The ones for working in the yard I bought about 10 years ago...they are for working in the yard because I don't worry about how nasty they get out there, they are already that bad.  The other pair for "wear" are the ones I bought oh, about 5 years ago, the ones I bought to replace the others purchased 10 years ago.  I showed him where there was no more paint or materials in spots, where the sole is worn completely through in spots, etc.

I fully intended on ribbing him about here on my blog about the apparent discrepancy in our purchases and how I definitely didn't need a hard time from him on my purchase of a discount pair of shoes on clearance after 5 years (when he purchased a brand new tv with all the bells and whistles!), with my bonus.

That was, at least, until this happened:

Photo courtesy www.firehouse.com

Ok, so it really wasn't that bad but since apparently my hubby forgot to take a picture this will have to do.
Yes, I crashed my car.  Unfortunately I crashed my car into the rental car we had.  In my driveway.  While my entire family watched.  While our other car was in the shop waiting to be picked up from getting fixed after a freak accident led to its damage.  Yeah.  That.

So I guess we're even.